The attempt of the University Professor and the head of administration office (Vice Chancellor) of the
On Sunday 15 June, the female student was called to the Madadi’s office over a disciplinary hearing. In the meeting, she found out about the intention of the professor who asked her to come to her office at a later date. She was faced with the option of either giving in to Madadi’s demands and advances or facing expulsion. She informed a group of students of the matter.
On the day of the incident (when the female student was meeting with the Madadi), a group of students broke into his office, interrupted his attempted advances on the student, and handed him over to the University Guard office (a disciplinary body which monitors students’ activities).
As soon as the other students learnt about the incident, they gathered in the Campus Sport Hall. Students demanded the removal of the administrator as an offender, as well as apology and resignation of the Minister of Advanced Education, Zahedi. Later on, 3000 students of the
Although the students demanded for the protection and safety of the female student and other protesters, the public prosecutor of Zanjan announced the arrest of the victim. It was also announced other students involved will be called before the Disciplinary Committee. Meanwhile, the University president, Mr. Alireza Nedaf, addressed the protesters, thanking them for their vigilance. “We have asked the students to present relevant evidence because this issue needs further examination (ISNA)”, he said.
Whereas “the details of the university incident” and the video of the students breaking into the Vice-Chancellor’s office has disseminated widely on different websites, on Thursday evening at the government official meeting, Zahedi, Minister of Advanced Education, denied and questioned all the evidences, and made various allegations against students. “This film proves nothing”, he said of the video clip of the incident filmed by the student who broke into Madadi’s office as he was trying to assault the female student.
Prior to this incident, the Student’s Islamic Association was shut down because of the baseless and unfounded accusations such as member’s moral problems and their lack of Islamic behaviour. Madadi, the Vice Chancellor and the offender in this case, was the one who singed the closure sentence of the Association.
Resignation and apology of Zahedi, Minister of Advanced Education
Disclosure of the alleged offence committed by the Vice Chancellor, has had wide reaction in other universities in
It is worth noting that sexual harassment of female students in
The Women Committee of Daftar -Tahkim-Vahdat, central Students Union, wrote an open letter to Zahedi, and severely protested the detention of the female victim. The Women Committee questioned Zahedi’s denial of the incident, and pointed out the verdict of Hana Abdi, the woman Kurd activist recently sentenced to 5 years in prison to be served in exile.
What we have said here is only a brief listing of academic violations and denial of right to education in Iranian universities today. Students are determined to continue their legal and rightful struggle to promote independence of universities and uphold academic freedoms, although many are sacrificed down this path.
Iran is a state party to both the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (without reservation) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), both of which prohibit the execution of persons under the age of 18 at the time of their offense. In ratifying the CRC, Iran declared an extremely broad reservation, “not to apply any provisions or articles of the Convention that are incompatible with Islamic Laws.”
one must not forget that one aspect of “security” cases is the image that they carry for the groups that advance such issues. Therefore, before fake charges take to the news-media and become public, those who have had a hand in arresting the students must be weakened. Otherwise, after the severe charges are made public, repeated and are tied to the image of the actors, even the intervention of the head of the judiciary (as history demonstrates) cannot be of much help to the detainees.
How can we tell the judiciary officials of Iran that according to law juveniles can stay alive and continue to live with appropriate and suitable punishment? How must one make this request from the judiciary a public and wide-spread demand and point out that killing a juvenile who has not wholeheartedly committed an act does not solve any of the real problems facing the country?
Thousands of university students in an Iranian city have held a protest against the attempted sexual harassment of a female colleague by a top university official, the press reported on Monday. About 3,000 students at the university in the northwestern city of Zanjan staged the sit-in protest over the weekend at a sports hall on campus, the reports said.
